


Fractured Moonlight on the Sea

by EachPeachPearPlum



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff and Angst, Gen, He just sometimes has a tail, It's still pretty low-angst but warning you anyway., M/M, Merman Tony Stark, Merpeople, Post-Iron Man 2, Pre-Avengers (2012), Pre-Slash, Remix, Rescue, Steve was awake in the ice, tony is still iron man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:36:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22294183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EachPeachPearPlum/pseuds/EachPeachPearPlum
Summary: As the mysterious object grows nearer, it becomes clearer but no more explicable. There’s flashes of red and gold, both washed out by the blueness of the light, moving with the light but not always in the same position in relation to it, and-It’s a man. The thing travelling in Steve’s direction from below the water is a man. Those are hands, cutting through the water, and a face, a bare torso, the light not attached to the man’s clothing (as Steve first assumed) but actually in his chest.It’s sort of a man, anyway, if Steve doesn’t look any lower than waist height. Below that, the flashes of red and gold are slowly resolving themselves into scales.Scales.The thing heading towards him is a mermaid. Man. Person?
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 13
Kudos: 186
Collections: 2020 Captain America/Iron Man Relay Remix





	Fractured Moonlight on the Sea

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Ocean Cold](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22754680) by [MiniRaven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiniRaven/pseuds/MiniRaven). 



> So, as warned in the tags, this fic features a Steve who is conscious in the ice, as in the work it's a remix of, though I have done my best to make sure it's as angst free as such a premise is able to be.
> 
> I want to thank the creator of the original work for giving me such an interesting idea to work with (and one I'd never have considered writing otherwise), and the mods for running the remix relay event. I love remixes, but without this particular subset of the Cap-IM remix I wouldn't have been able to participate this year.
> 
> Title is from Florence + the Machine's _Never Let Me Go_.

In hindsight, Steve really wishes he’d closed his eyes as the Valkyrie was going down, but at the time it had seemed like the thing to do. The sight of the Atlantic Ocean rising up to meet him was awful, certainly, huge and unavoidable, but Steve had never flinched in the face of death before and he certainly wasn’t going to do so this time. He had gone to meet his maker with eyes wide open and in full awareness of what was about to happen to him.

Well. What he believed was about to happen, anyway.

Because Steve stared down death without blinking, still sick with grief for Bucky, adding to it his grief for the life he might have had with Peggy, and it was the same way he’d stared down death every single time it came for him in the past.

And, just like every other time, death stared back at him and said _no, thank you, not today_.

So he'd watched as the ocean crashed through the window, as the water rose up around him, as he realised exactly how cold it was. If he’d had any sense, that’s when he would have closed his eyes, but sense is not something anyone has ever accused Steve of having.

The ice covers him, cold and thick, an agony worse than the serum being administered, than any of his past ailments, and Steve’s eyes are still open.

X

He isn’t always awake. It’s about the only blessing Steve can ascribe to his new not-life, the fact that sometimes his brain decides to let him – not sleep, not rest, but to be somewhere else, in his mind rather than in his body. With Peggy, with Bucky and the Howlies, warm and dry, safe and not alone, and he knows it’s not real but he wants it to be. God, does he want it to be.

The rest of the time, Steve grows used to staring at the world through his layer of ice. He moves with the tides, with the shifting ocean currents and the waves of passing animals, sometimes looking up at the sky, others down into the depths, and after a matter of days Steve realises how pointless it is to try keep track of time. The long summer days and winter nights means he’s able to witness the seasons passing (not that summer differs from winter when he’s trapped down here, other than that the light lasts longer), but there’s no point in trying to count the years, none at all.

This is Steve’s life, now: the ice around him, the ocean beyond it. The little he can see through a thick layer of ice is the only entertainment he gets, the occasional fish, whale or seal swimming past him the only real change he’s seen for more time than he knows.

Before today, the most exciting thing he’s seen since he crashed the Valkyrie was a polar bear, and now there’s…

Actually, Steve isn’t entirely sure what it is. A light, certainly, bright blue and round, approaching rapidly from well below the surface; it’s obviously not a boat, but Steve can’t see why a submarine would have a light like that. It’s far from stealthy, and this is coming from the man who regularly ran into battle with an actual target on his back.

As the mysterious object grows nearer, it becomes clearer but no more explicable. There’s flashes of red and gold, both washed out by the blueness of the light, moving with the light but not always in the same position in relation to it, and-

It’s a man. The thing travelling in Steve’s direction from below the water is a man. Those are hands, cutting through the water, and a face, a bare torso, the light not attached to the man’s clothing (as Steve first assumed) but actually in his chest.

It’s sort of a man, anyway, if Steve doesn’t look any lower than waist height. Below that, the flashes of red and gold are slowly resolving themselves into scales.

Scales.

The thing heading towards him is a mermaid. Man. Person?

In the years he spent in Europe, Steve saw some pretty weird things, but this? This takes the cake.

The merman comes to halt alongside Steve, pressing one hand against the ice that separates them. Steve looks at it, at the sharp claws and red webbing between the fingers, and then beyond it, at the face looking back to him.

It’s a handsome face, there’s no question of that. A defined jaw with precisely trimmed facial hair, skin given a blue-ish tint by the glowing light, hair the same colour as his beard in a style Steve has never seen before, somehow still held in place despite the water. His eyes are dark, probably brown, wide with recognition.

How the hell does a merman recognise him?

Steve meets the merman’s gaze and then, very deliberately, looks down and back up again, to one side and then the other. He’s long since given up trying to move his limbs, the ice too thick and too solid around him to allow for that, but he can move his eyes, and if he does so enough the merman will notice.

He sees the moment the merman realises Steve is alive, is still mostly conscious, trapped in his case of ice. It’s clear in the dawning horror on his face, the way his hands twitch, sharp claws scoring grooves in the ice between them.

_“Shit_ , _”_ the merman very clearly mouths, any sound he’s making lost before it gets to Steve’s ears.

Circumstances prevent Steve responding in any normal way, so he turns again to moving his eyes, looking up and then down, the closest approximation of a nod he can manage.

The merman nods back, presses his palm to where Steve’s shoulder would be, if he could actually touch him.

_“I’ll get you out_ , _”_ the merman mouths next. “ _Just hold on, Steve_. _”_

_Where the hell am I going to go?_ Steve thinks, but then the merman is swimming away, and Steve wants to shout for him to come back, desperate not to be alone again. He’s been alone so long, for a lifetime, it feels like, and he can’t stay here, living but not, unable to die but unable to do anything else either.

He can’t do this, not anymore.

_Please_ , he begs, in his mind only because he can’t do so aloud. _Please, come back_.

Miracle of miracles, the merman does.

X

“Say nothing,” the merman says later, after he’s smashed through the ice and dragged Steve’s still largely unresponsive form to a ship. He pushes Steve unceremoniously up onto the deck, then hauls himself up after, muscles in his arms and torso working overtime to make up for the lack of legs.

_Should you be doing that?_ Steve thinks, looking from the merman’s tail to his webbed, clawed hands, and then quite pointedly to the gills on his neck; given that he’s only just learned of their existence, he can’t exactly claim to be an expert in merperson biology, but he’s pretty sure things that have gills should stay underwater.

Except, he realises, the merman no longer has gills. In the space of one blink, they’ve sealed up to leave a perfectly normal looking neck. The claws have also vanished, the webbing between the merman’s fingers has retreated, and the tail… Steve glances down just in time to see the last few scales fade away, leaving a pair of legs that are absolutely, undeniably human, lightly haired and slightly paler than the man’s tanned torso, face and arms.

If he hadn’t seen it for himself, Steve honestly wouldn’t have believed that the handsome, entirely naked man climbing to his feet was half-fish only a few moments ago.

“Seriously, Capsicle,” the merman (just man, now?) says, walking across the deck towards a towel and a pile of clothing. “I’m not ending up back on some whack-job scientist’s table because you can’t keep your mouth shut, _capisce_?”

Steve very much does not understand, but even if he could speak his rescuer doesn’t seem to be expecting an answer. Instead, he’s firmly ignoring Steve as he towels himself off roughly before tugging on the clothes and chucking the towel at Steve. It’s damp, but less so than Steve is, so he doesn’t attempt to protest, just watches and tries to remember how breathing works as the man approaches.

“Tony Stark,” he says. Apparently he picks up on Steve’s recognition of the name, despite his continued inability to express it in any way, because he grimaces before wearily adding, “Yeah, I know, you and my dad were best buddies way back when.”

Again, Steve’s not exactly understanding; the idea of Howard having a child isn’t exactly an implausible one, given how free he is with his affections, but that he has a son older than Steve is surprising to say the least, as is the fact that he’s apparently talked about Steve.

However, he’s still not in a position to express his confusion, nor can he object when Tony smiles down at him and says, “Chill here a moment, Rogers. I’ll see if we’ve got a doctor on board.”

Tony turns around, striding quickly away, then doubles back.

“And remember, not a word, yeah?” he says, tapping his index finger against the side of his nose, and offers Steve a grin that can only be described as conspiratorial before setting off on his search for a doctor.

_Okay_ , Steve thinks to himself, staring up at the sky, a deeper and richer colour than he’s seen it in- well, since before the crash. _Rescued by a merman. That’s a new one_.


End file.
